The present invention relates to detergent and cleaner shaped bodies which have at least one viscoelastic phase.
Detergent or cleaner shaped bodies are described widely in the prior art and have caught on because of their advantages both commercially and with the consumer.
The customary manufacture of detergent or cleaner shaped bodies involves the preparation of particulate premixes which are compressed to tablets by tableting processes known to the person skilled in the art. In the manufacture of detergents or cleaners, the starting substances can often not be tableted directly, but must be converted into a tabletable form by upstream processing steps, for example granulation, which signifies additional time and cost expenditure. In particular, the incorporation of surfactants is problematical in this respect, an additional problem with anionic surfactants being that the acid form of the anionic surfactants which is produced during the manufacture of the surfactants has to firstly be converted into the active substance (the salt) by further neutralization steps.
In addition, the supply form of the compressed tablet means that the ingredients are in direct physical proximity, which, in the case of substances which are incompatible with one another, leads to undesired reactions, instabilities, inactivities or loss of active substance.
To solve the abovementioned problems, it has been proposed in the prior art to provide multiphase tablets in which two or more layers are pressed onto one another. However, this has the disadvantage that the lower layers are subjected to repeated compressive loading, which leads to impaired solubility. Furthermore, said problems were not completely solved by this since tablets with more than three layers cannot be manufactured with reasonable technical expenditure.
A further approach to finding a solution is given in international patent applications WO99/06522, WO99/27063 and WO99/27067. It is proposed here to provide tablets of compressed and noncompressed portions and to incorporate pressure-sensitive substances into the noncompressed portions. According to the teaching of international patent application WO99/27064, a suitable noncompressed phase here is also a “gelatinous” phase, which is obtained from liquids by the addition of thickeners. This has the disadvantage that substances which develop no effect in the washing or cleaning process (thickeners) have to be used, which leads to further costs without additional benefits.
There was thus, as before, the need to provide improved detergent or cleaner shaped bodies which combine the highest degree of mechanical stability with good solubility and permit the incorporation of ingredients which are incompatible with one another. In this connection, the aim was to provide products which combine the convenience and performance (good detergency through a high surfactant content) of a gel-like detergent with the consumer friendliness of the “tablet” supply form. Additionally, the supply form to be provided should open up the possibility of being able to largely dispense with upstream formulation steps. In particular, the use of the anionic surfactants in their acid form should be possible without having to convert them beforehand into neutralized granules.